Chapter 60: The Crucible of Blood

They did not rush in blindly. They stood in silent, horrifying discipline, surrounding the ruins of the Starlight Kingdom like a cage of flesh and iron, waiting for the signal to step forward and devour the survivors trapped within the burning rubble.

Humanity was no longer in a kingdom. They were caged birds waiting for the butcher’s blade.

Evelyn’s pupils dilated in raw, visceral terror. Her entire body locked up, her breathing shallow and ragged as a suffocating weight clamped down on her chest. Standing upon the edge of the palace lawn, she was forced to witness the absolute devastation of the kingdom she had sworn to protect.

The cosmic impact had transformed the vast capital into a hellish crater. Endless rows of pristine marble estates and commercial plazas were reduced to hills of pulverized rubble and smoldering ash. A dense, superheated dust cloud hung heavy over the ruins, thick with the acrid stench of ozone, burning timber, and scorched flesh. Every breath burned the lungs, leaving a bitter, metallic taste on the tongue.

Amidst the swirling ash, the surviving heroes of the realm sprang into desperate action.

"Form rescue squads now!" Kael’s voice thundered across the shattered central district. The Hero Commander stood atop a mountain of broken stone, his azure cape shredded, his longsword unsheathed. "Clear the primary avenues! Pull anyone who’s breathing out of the rubble and move them south! Go! Go!"

Kael’s orders cut through the ringing ears of the surviving elite. Squads of heroes fanned out across the burning grid, vaulting over massive earth fissures and levering heavy granite beams off trapped civilians. Below them, the earth groaned continuously as deep subterranean cracks widened, swallowing entire sections of collapsed housing.

Moments later, the surviving battalions of the royal guard mobilized, their silver armor tarnished with soot. Hundreds of soldiers rushed into the dust-choked ruins, hauling severely burned commoners and bloodied children out of the collapsing basements. Those caught directly within the zero-point impact radius had been instantly vaporized; for them, no rescue was possible. The guards focused entirely on the outer perimeter, pulling the injured toward the clearing avenues.

Evelyn took a single, agonizing step forward. Her knees trembled violently, her bare arms covered in fine ash.

"No... This can’t be happening," she rasped, her voice breaking into a breathless whisper. "This... is real..."

Her hands clawed at her own hair, her fingers tangling in the dark blue strands as she sank to her knees on the ruined grass. Tears cut pale tracks through the dust on her cheeks. "I failed them... I was supposed to protect this realm... I failed..."

"Evelyn! Look at me!"

A pair of hands grabbed Evelyn’s shoulders, shaking her with fierce insistence. Elysia knelt before her sister, her own face smeared with soot, her eyes burning with urgent resolve.

"Sister, get up!" Elysia demanded, her voice cutting through the roar of distant fires. "The capital is burning, but there are thousands of people still breathing! They need us!"

"Elysia..." Evelyn choked out, her sapphire eyes unfocused, staring blankly at the frantic soldiers sprinting past them.

All around them, officers roared orders, stretcher-bearers carried blood-soaked survivors, and the sound of sobbing children echoed through the choking haze. The royal guard was frantically routing the surviving civilian columns toward the capital’s southern gate—a reinforced passageway that led directly into the borderlands of the Lumiria settlement, where Ren’s newly built district lay.

"Was it my fault?" Evelyn gasped, her teeth grinding so hard her jaw ached. Her fingers dug deeper into her scalp. "Because I stood against Velista... because I defied the Heretical Dark Faction... is this his punishment for me?!"

"Stop it!" Elysia snapped, grabbing Evelyn’s face with both hands and forcing her sister to meet her gaze. "Stop blaming yourself! Look at me, Evelyn!"

Evelyn blinked, the harsh clarity in her younger sister’s voice piercing through her spiral of despair.

"You didn’t bring this meteor down! Velista did!" Elysia yelled, her grip firm and unwavering. "This happened because the world is cruel, not because you failed! If you sit here wallowing in guilt, then Velista wins! Is that what you want?!"

Evelyn remained frozen, her chest heaving as she stared into Elysia’s sharp, unforgiving eyes.

"You are the Princess of this realm!" Elysia shook her again, her tone unyielding. "You cannot control the sky, and you couldn’t stop the impact! Stop obsessing over what you couldn’t control and focus on what you can do right now!"

The words struck Evelyn like a physical slap.

’Focus on what I can control...’

The fog in her mind cleared slightly. Elysia was right. Paralyzing herself with guilt was a luxury she could not afford. If she surrendered to despair now, every soul currently crawling out of the ash would die.

She remembered the day she had taken the crown—sixteen years ago, after her parents had perished on the front lines defending the kingdom against an Aberrant tide. She remembered standing before the assembly of survivors, a child inheriting a broken realm, seeing the desperate, unwavering hope in the eyes of the people as she inherited the Grace bloodline’s Skyblade technique. They had chosen her to be their shield.

Evelyn drew a long, ragged breath, letting the cold air burn her throat. She closed her eyes for a single second, burying her weakness beneath a layer of absolute, uncompromising stone.

When she opened her eyes, the hollow panic was gone, replaced by a cold, sharp focus.

"I’m awake," Evelyn said softly.

Elysia released her shoulders, a faint, relieved breath escaping her lips as she helped her sister stand.

Before Evelyn could issue her next command, a commotion erupted behind them. A cluster of high-ranking ministry officials, regional lords, and royal advisors came scrambling up the palace steps. Verion led the pack, his golden hair disheveled, his pristine uniform torn at the sleeve. Their faces were pale, slick with cold sweat, their eyes wide with unadulterated panic.

"Princess Evelyn!" a senior minister shrieked, clutching his embroidered robes to keep from tripping. "The capital is completely ruined! The outer walls are gone! What are we supposed to do?! Where are we going to go?!"

"My estate in the upper district was vaporized!" another noble babbled, his hands shaking hysterically. "My lineage, my treasury—everything is gone! How are we going to secure our positions if the kingdom’s infrastructure is destroyed?!"

Verion pushed his way to the front, his fists clenched tight, his teeth bared in shock. "Your Highness... you knew... You actually foresaw this absolute nightmare..."

Evelyn turned slowly to face the cluster of trembling aristocrats. As she listened to them whine about their lost titles, their destroyed manors, and their personal comfort while thousands of commoners lay dying in the dirt below, a cold, venomous disgust welled up in her chest.

"Shut your pathetic mouths," Evelyn said.

Her voice wasn’t loud, but it carried an icy weight that instantly silenced the panicked council.

She stepped forward, pointing a single, trembling finger at the smoldering crater of the lower city, where teams of bloody soldiers were dragging screaming mothers out from beneath crushed granite walls.

"Look at them!" Evelyn roared, her composure cracking into pure, unadulterated fury. "Look at the people bleeding in the ash! Millions of lives have been shattered in a single minute, and you spineless bastards are standing here weeping over your titles, your gold, and your cozy estates?! Where is your shame?!"

The ministers flinched, instinctively stepping back from the terrifying intensity in her eyes. Several old lords looked down at the ground, unable to meet her gaze.

Evelyn swallowed down the bitter rage in her throat, her teeth clicking together as she turned her head back toward the southern horizon.

"Sister," Elysia interjected quietly, stepping to her side. "Lumiria wasn’t hit directly by the impact. The distance and the outer ridges shielded the sector. It’s the only stable territory left. Should we direct the civilian evacuation strictly toward Ren’s domain?"

Evelyn offered a single, firm nod. "Yes. I’ve already ordered the garrison commanders to channel the main survivor columns through the southern gate into Lumiria."

Verion’s jaw twitched. His eyes narrowed in disgust, the aristocratic arrogance briefly flaring back to the surface despite the horror around them. The other ministers exchanged uneasy, displeased glances, whispering among themselves about being forced to seek refuge in a district governed by a common porter.

Evelyn caught every subtle gesture. Her lips curled into a cold, ruthless sneer.

’Look at them,’ she thought, her heart hardening against the men who sat on her father’s council. ’Leeches who lived in luxury while the common folk bled outside the walls. Once we settle in Lumiria, under Ren’s command, I will strip every single one of you of your administrative power. You will taste what it means to be an ordinary refugee.’

"Look out!" a panicked soldier screamed from the broken southern perimeter. "The dust is clearing! They’re moving!"

The warning echoed across the ruins like a death knell.

As the superheated dust cloud settled slightly, the terrifying reality beyond the shattered kingdom walls was fully laid bare.

The massive, disciplined army of Aberrants surrounding the perimeter began to advance.

Hundreds of thousands of Grade-A and Grade-B monstrosities moved in terrifying unison. Among them were hulking, two-meter-tall humanoid abominations with sickly purple hide, glowing blood-red eyes, and gaping maws lined with rows of razor-sharp, jagged fangs. As they opened their monstrous jaws, a collective, subsonic roar tore through the atmosphere, vibrating the earth and shaking the loose rubble beneath everyone’s feet.

Through the massive breaches where the impenetrable white walls had collapsed, the tide of flesh and teeth poured toward the defenseless capital.

On the front lines of the rescue operation, soldiers and heroes froze.

Commanders Kael and Aether stood atop a ridge of broken stone, their weapons drawn, their bodies trembling as they stared out at the infinite crimson sea closing in on them. Soldiers carrying wounded civilians halted mid-step, horror washing over their faces. Several young guards dropped their shields, backing away in blind panic as the ground shook violently beneath the weight of the marching horde.

Evelyn’s breath hitched. Her jaw went slack.

These weren’t ordinary wild beasts. These were the original, ancient Aberrant strains—the primordial man-eaters that had descended during the First Great Cataclysm centuries ago.

They were biological nightmares. Magic-resistant, immune to conventional physical trauma, and driven by a relentless, hive-mind predatory instinct. Their only absolute weak point was the condensed core located deep within their thick, muscular throats—a small, vital nexus that they instinctively protected with heavy armor plates and aggressive defensive maneuvers. Killing even a single one required precise, lethal execution.

Facing hundreds of thousands of them in an open, shattered ruin was suicide.

Down in the residential ruins, absolute pandemonium erupted.

"Monsters! The barrier is gone! They’re coming in!"

"Run! Get to the southern gate!"

Panicked shrieks shattered the air as millions of surviving civilians lost all composure. Mothers clutched their bleeding children to their chests, sprinting wildly over sharp stone fragments and cracked earth. Wounded men dragged themselves along the dirt, screaming in agony as the crowd trampled over them in a blind, frantic rush to escape the outer perimeter.

Behind the fleeing tide of humanity, the two-meter purple abominations breached the broken ramparts, their glowing red eyes locking onto the helpless crowd. They flexed their multi-jointed limbs, opening their vast, fang-filled maws, eager to paint the ruined capital in blood.